The elites’ guide to ‘rogue states’

Adrian Salbuchi is an international political analyst, researcher and consultant. Author of several books on geopolitics in Spanish and English (including ‘The Coming World Government: Tragedy & Hope’), he is also a conference speaker in Argentina and radio/TV commentator.
He writes op-ed pieces for RT Spanish as well as RT English, and is a regular guest on alternative media radio and TV shows in the US, Europe and Latin America.
Adrian currently hosts his TV show ‘Segunda República’ on Channel TLV1 – Toda La Verdad Primero – in Buenos Aires, and is founder of the Second Republic Project (Proyecto Segunda República), a sovereign governance model for Argentina, Latin American countries and elsewhere.
His website is: www.asalbuchi.com.ar;
YouTube channel:www.youtube.com/user/arsalbuchi

It’s definitely not good news nowadays for any country to be classified a ‘Rogue State’ by the US-led hegemonic Western Powers, for it will not only cost you billions in cash and economic hardship, but millions of lives as well.

That continues to be the between-the-lines message to the world
from US hardliners with their ‘you’re either with us or
against us’ rhetoric. A decade ago Iraq was branded a
‘rogue state’; today, moderate estimates speak of an Iraqi
death toll of 500,000 since the 2003 invasion and civil
war.

Lying your way into global power

Iraq is clearly the most famous rogue state, if we are to believe
the two Bushes, especially the junior George, who rammed into
that country in 2003, all but destroying it, maiming its people
and proud 3,000-year-old heritage. All based on an outright
lie: the infamous ‘weapons of mass destruction’ they were accused
of hiding, but that were never found.

In those days of hysterical mainstream media warmongering George
W., Tony Blair and their henchmen had their way, bombing the
country to smithereens. A decade on, we learn from a report just published in the Public Library of
Science Medicine Journal that, based on household samplings, an
estimated 500,000 men, women and children have been killed since
the invasion.

A moderate estimate, since others go significantly higher. Take
The Lancet, one of the world’s oldest medical journals, which
published two peer-reviewed studies, the latest in 2006 putting
the figure in excess of 650,000. Or ORB (Opinion Research
Business) an independent polling agency in London, which in 2007
published a study estimating total Iraqi war fatalities between
2003 and 2007 at over 1.2 million.

All because Bush, Blair and their allies got it all “wrong” about
Saddam’s WMD’s: “We never found ‘em,” said George
W., who then went on to joke about the whole affair during a
White House dinner in March 2004.

Clearly, blatant genocide and war crimes committed by the West’s
top leaders in broad daylight over which nobody seems to be
responsible. No one was ever made accountable; no one ever
bothered to apologize to Iraq or to the world.

I guess they’ve all been too busy going after and ‘smokin’ out’
other rogue states like Syria, where the civil war against the
legal government of Bashar Assad that is being waged by US, UK,
French, Saudi and Israeli-backed/trained/financed terrorists
(including Al-Qaeda offshoot Al-Nusra Front) has already cost
over 120,000 Syrian deaths, mostly civilian.

Then there was Libya in 2011, where interim ‘democratic’
government estimates speak of as many as 30,000 dead, including
the execution of Muammar Gaddafi and many of his family members
and government officials. God only knows how many were actually
shot, bombed, and lynched like Gaddafi by the NATO-backed
‘freedom fighters’ there.

Add to this the impossible-to-calculate number of dead, maimed
and murdered during the Western Powers’-engineered ‘Arab
Spring’ throughout the Arab World over the past three years,
plus the decades-long Palestinian tragedy at the hands of their
Israeli-run Concentration Camp Kommandants, and we’re talking
about many millions of deaths which begin to echo the so, so
oft-repeated ‘6 million’ figure.

So be careful, world! Make sure your country’s not branded
a ‘rogue state’, because if it is, then you’re in for a
lot of trouble!

What isn’t a ‘rogue state’

First of all, the term – more importantly, the concept - was made
popular during the Clinton Administration. It was formally
introduced by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in 1994 when
then-National Security Advisor Anthony Lake published a report in
CFR journal Foreign Affairs, claiming "the reality of
recalcitrant and outlaw states that not only choose to remain
outside the family [of democratic nations] but also assault its
basic values.”

In typical self-righteous US-ranting, he then went on to label
North Korea, Cuba, Iraq, Libya and Iran as rogue states. That
initial list grew with time to include Sudan, Afghanistan,
Somalia, Serbia, Montenegro, Venezuela… all backed by PsyWar
name-calling like ‘Axis of Evil’, ‘Outposts of
Tyranny’ and ‘Terrorist States’.

But, to understand what a rogue state is, we first need to
understand what a rogue state is not in today’s ‘world according
to the US/UK/EU/Israel’.

Let’s begin by describing the four things that every country must
do in order not to be branded a rogue state by the global
hegemons:

1) General behavior: Every nation must maintain unconditional and
unflinching alignment to the present ‘world order’
controlled and promoted by the global powers that are embedded
deep inside key Western military powers, notably the US.

If a nation heeds, obeys, acclaims, pays tribute and is
subservient to the on-going economic, financial, political,
historical and cultural world outlook and order, and remains
passive whilst the global powers prepare the coming ‘new world
order’ – whether under the guise of ‘the Western
democracies’, or ‘globalization’, or ‘the
international community’ or, soon-to-come, ‘World
Government’ – then you’re OK.

If, however, a nation dares defy any aspect of this, it will soon
find itself slipping fast into ‘rogue state mode’. That’s
what happened to Saddam in 1990 after he invaded Kuwait without
first getting the proper ‘green light’ from the US; that’s
what happened to Argentina’s pro-US military junta in 1982 when
General Galtieri tried to take back the Falkland Islands from
Britain without Washington’s OK.

2) Specific behavior: Then, every nation must maintain
unconditional alignment to specific US/UK/EU/Israel-dictated
‘special interests’ involving the country and its region.
This naturally varies from country to country and fluctuates as
specific interests of the hegemon evolve. Some examples:

• Egypt: Total alignment to Israel and its geopolitical
interests. That was quite a historical somersault for Gamal
Nasser’s country to make, considering that for decades Egypt
spearheaded Arab opposition to the West’s imposing of Israel on
Palestinian territory. Hosni Mubarak was their man who for 32
years kept Egypt ‘on course’ until… Until he
stupidly breached condition No. 3 (see below).

• Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain:
Keep the oil flowing, be nice to our oil companies and to Israel,
and your leaders can do whatever else they like (see 4, below).

Because if Argentina were to do that it could then declare huge
chunks of it as ‘odious debt’ suing the mega-bankers in
US/EU courts. Such table-turning would make Goldman Sachs,
Citigroup, JPMorganChase, HSBC, the IMF/WorldBank/FED and vulture
funds really angry. One other thing: now that your 30-year-old
‘democracy’ has destroyed Argentina’s armed forces and sunk the
country into unprecedented decadence, don’t even think of making
a policy U-turn. Keep all of this going and your leaders too can
do whatever else they like. (see 4, below)

3) Internal control & credibility: However, if a nation’s
leadership ‘behaves nicely’, yet cannot control its own
population and maintain domestic credibility, then like it or
not, we’re going to have to replace you. And if you don’t
like it, well, they will just ‘make you an offer you can’t

a. Hosni Mubarak of Egypt: When the Tahrir Square uprising began
he proved unable to maintain order and credibility. It turned out
that 32 years is just too long stay in power even with US money
and support, so out the window he went. When Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton visited Egypt in March 2011 to “make sure
Egypt gets the kind of democracy that we want to see,” Muslim
Brotherhood president Morsi was not what she had in mind, so he
too went out the window thanks to a US-backed military coup.

Aren’t military coups supposed to be done by undemocratic
SOB’s? Yes, but as President Franklin Roosevelt once
famously said of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, “he may
be an SOB, but he’s our SOB!”

b. Fernando de La Rúa of Argentina: Elected in 1999, he was 110
percent compliant with (1) and (2) above, however he was most
inept in the way he bled the country so it would pay its pound of
flesh to international mega-bankers. His internal credibility and
grip collapsed and Fernando was forced to escape aboard his
chopper from the roof of the Casa Rosada presidential palace into
oblivion, as his police killed and beat up protesters on the
Plaza de Mayo square below.

Twelve years on, with Argentina’s ‘democracy’ about to
celebrate its 30th anniversary, its present political managers
are again losing grip: a new bout of ‘spares and replacements’
are thus needed, and you can bet your bottom dollar that they
have been identified and are being positioned to become
Argentina’s soon-to-come ‘new’ government. Just make sure
that they too continue being ‘serial debt payers’ to the
global mega-bankers as president Cristina Kirchner recently
described her and her husband’s more-than-10-year tenure in
power.

4) Corruption galore: The global powers’ message to all national
political leaders: as long as you fully perform and comply with
(1), (2) and (3) above, you can sink your grubby hands into all
the money you want. The message is clear: perform as we need you
to perform on the above key issues, and we don’t really care if
you steal millions, hundreds of millions or even billions from
your own people, whether by imposing endemic poverty on the local
population or as outright theft.

CitiCorp, Rockefeller, Rothschild, Soros, Goldman Sachs, US
Treasury, the IMF & World Bank couldn’t care less if Mubarak,
Berlusconi, Rajoy, Fujimori, Menem, Calderón, Lula and Kirchner
steal from their own people. If they can get away with it whilst
maintaining their local credibility and grip, it’s just not an
issue. If anything it’s an added asset for the elite, because
should such local leaders ‘misbehave’, they can then be
easily blackmailed out of power.

That, in a nutshell, is how the global powers exert control over
whole countries and regions by ensuring their chosen local
‘managers’ are placed at the helm of national governments to do
the elites’ dirty work for them. As long as these leaders ‘behave
and perform properly’ they can stay on for decades just like
Hosni Mubarak.

If they misbehave or their ‘useful lives’ expire, they’re
then quickly shown the exit and shoved out the door. When their
crimes and thefts are publicly exposed their own local
populations will do the kicking-out for them.

Saddam was so useful during the eight-year war of attrition
against Iran in the ’80s (Iran was Ronald Reagan’s original rogue
state), even Don Rumsfeld shook Saddam’s hand and gave him
chemical WMD’s to use against Iran’s Ayatollahs. After Kuwait,
however, Ronnie’s Veep – the Elder Bush – gave Saddam quite a
thrashing, but he didn’t learn his lesson. So Baby Bush taught
him good in 2003.

Sure, it’s not all that simple: each country has its own
characteristics, its own problems, its own usefulness for the
global powers. In fact, each country is a testing ground and a
learning ground, the lessons of which are later put to good use
in other countries and regions.

So, nations of the world: you’ve been warned. When walking
amongst fierce beasts, make sure you do so quietly, cautiously
and discreetly.

Be not too defiant lest you too are branded a ‘rogue state’… Then
you’ll be in real trouble!

Adrian Salbuchi is a political analyst, author, speaker and
radio/TV commentator in Argentina. www.asalbuchi.com.ar

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.